Letter: Illinois needs real solutions, not a bill to divide Illinois

Tuesday

Jul 3, 2018 at 1:54 PM

Twice in the past week State Rep. Joe Sosnowski, 69th District, has written an opinion pieces for the Rockford Register Star about his bill to split Illinois into two states. The first time, I thought what a waste of my tax dollars putting staff to work on this nonsense just to appease his base and get his name out there. When it appeared again, I took him more seriously. Is cut and run his governing approach?

This bill is an embarrassment. Sosnowski should be showing his skills as a consensus builder who understands the unique complexities of each part of the state. Instead he prefers to cut a new state down to his legislative and political abilities. When he refers to our Brexit, he doesn’t understand the value interconnectivity. He is oblivious to the struggles the European Union is facing trying to uncouple. He is trying to create a state Republicans can more reliably win, while skipping out on a mess he’s helped to create for the last eight years.

Sosnowski specializes in education where again he chose to cut and run. He could’ve been a strong advocate for improving our public school system. Instead he stood for a tax credit to make it easier for some families to leave their public school system. The important word is “some.” If the credit isn’t enough, if your community isn’t deemed profitable enough for a for-profit school or if your child has special needs, Sosnowski’s plan hurts your child. You’re now stuck in a public school system that is underfunded with its best educators poached. By the time we know if even these new schools have served our children well, Sosnowski may be off cutting his next job down to size leaving our public schools worse off than before.